28^th September, 2013 – Aran Islands. A highlight of our trip so far.

OK, so everything so far has been a highlight. But today was really special!

Since it’s Saturday, Andrew & Ramona came out to Galway to meet us for our day trip. Andrew had never been to the Aran Islands before, although Ramona has been a few times. We booked a day tour to Inishmor, which is the largest of the islands - there are 2 smaller ones which you can visit as well but with only one opportunity this trip, we went for the big one. Inishmore is around 18km long and 5km wide, and has a population of around 800 – although this doubles on a busy day in the summer holidays when up to 1000 tourists arrive!

We were pretty confident about getting from our accommodation to the coach station, which we had seen signs to from Eyre Square. Another beautifully sunny day as we walked through the square.

Of course, when we got to the coach station right on time, we couldn’t find the stand we were after. We asked someone, who said “Ohhhh – you’ll be wanting the NEW coach station. That’s down this street, across the road and to the right 500 metres”. So we were a little late, but we got there! It’s a huge new coach station, all very clearly marked INSIDE but not a lot outside to tell you where it is. Andrew and Ramona were inside wondering where we were, so they were relieved that we got there in time. The tour was a bus trip to Rossaveal, on the Galway coast, then a ferry to the islands and a minibus tour of Inishmore with a local guide. The bus ride passed through Galway suburbs into Connemara countryside, as the tour guide played Irish music and told us some information about the Islands and some corny jokes.

The ferry takes about 45 minutes and we had a very smooth ride. We could soon see the town of Kilronan in front of us.

We met our local guide and headed off in the minibus. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the islands, and he had a distinctive accent – the flow of words sounded more Welsh than Irish, and some of his pronounciations were unusual – “threes” for “trees”, words starting with D had a hard TH sound. He was very down-to-earth and didn’t like to make any claims about anything he hadn’t seen for himself. “Those white rocks there are not originally from the island – they’re not limestone, they’re graneeet. They’ve come over from Galway, probably in the ice age. So the geologists will be telling us, but I don’t know about that myself”. “See that garden? The man there is into all this organic gardening. He grows vegetables. Those tall ones are called artichokes. Art-ee-chokes. People eat them. So they say, but I don’t know. Folks around here don’t eat them”.

The tour started in Kilronan and the relatively lush, fertile areas nearby – the island is very exposed to wind and has little topsoil over the limestone so this sheltered area is the only place where tall trees can grow.

The whole island is criss-crossed with thousands of stone walls – partly to divide up the fields, but also because the stones have to go somewhere! The natural state of the island is basically covered in stones.

Many of the houses are made of stone, often white-washed and some with thatched roofs.

The thatching is expensive to maintain, and many of the older houses are very small, so these are often converted into sheds and barns.

There are also various “leprechaun houses” around the island, which our guide was naturally very sceptical about.

Fuchsias grow wild on the more fertile parts of the island and frequently need to be cut back. There are also blackberries and currants, which you can pick and eat as you explore.

We stopped at Dun Aengus, an Iron Age fort made of concentric rings of dry stone walls. It is thought to have been mainly for ceremonial purposes rather than defence, as the chance of attack was fairly minimal considering its position at the edge of a 300 foot high cliff!

It is a pleasant walk up to the fort along a path surrounded by that distinctive Aran Islands landscape.

The views from the top are amazing.

Our next stop was a spot called the Seven Churches – “but I don’t know that there are really seven or if they were all really churches. Some of them might have been houses” – a monastic site from the 8^th to 11^th Centuries. There is a cemetery with graves from those times right up to the last few years – the same family names appear over and over, although the spellings vary a bit. By the way, the island is a Gaeltacht area (Irish-speaking) – our guide considers it his first language, although he was certainly fluent in English – and apparently it is a slightly different dialect to the mainstream Irish language.

Our tour continued on through the island, past a mix of cultivated and rock-covered areas. You can see that the walls are completely dry stone with no mortar or anything to hold the stones together.

Right at the tip of the island, we stopped for a clamber over the rocks and a view towards the other 2 Aran Islands. We could see some seals swimming in the sea but they didn’t come too close.

There is a beach on the island called Kilmurvey. It is a lovely beach with lots of white sand. A few people were swimming, but it must have been cold!

After this we just had time to head back to Kilronan for a drink and a bit of shopping before the evening ferry back to the mainland.

Back to Galway city where we went to McDonagh’s for fish and chips. Galway always seems to be busy in the evenings, and tonight was no exception!

27^th September 2013 – Connemara day trip.

Today dawned sunny and cloudless– perfect weather for a drive around Connemara. This region to the west of Galway city makes a wonderful day trip.

We left after breakfast and made our way to Oughterard, where we visited Aughenure Castle. We don’t know how to pronounce these places, and our attempts mostly sounded vaguely Scottish. Aughenure Castle was built in the 15^th Century (which seems to have been an intensely busy time of building in this region – almost everything we've seen seems to be either 15^th or 19^th Century!).

It is a short but pleasant walk along a river to the castle – it was built on a small island in the river so it had a natural moat for defence.

The gate house is so old, and so damp, it is growing stalactites!

The walls and outer towers are mostly ruined, set in lovely countryside with cows and Connemara ponies.

The tower house is largely intact and you can go up rounds and rounds of spiral staircase. It would originally have been 6 storeys and is now only 4 – you can see where roof/floor beams would have been to divide the levels.

There is a very funny-looking defence tower inside the walls of the castle.

When we had finished exploring the castle, we headed out again. Our next stop was an old mine, abandoned in the 1860s, where silver and lead were previously mined. There were some interesting old buildings and information about the geological diversity of the area – more than any other part of Ireland.

As we continued on our way, the scenery became more and more amazing. There are rolling hills on one side and dramatic mountain peaks on the other, with beautiful blue lakes at every turn. The whole area is covered in dry stone walls, thatched roof cottages and ruined castles.

We kept heading west until we reached the town of Clifden, on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. There is a tourist drive from there called the Sky Road, and well – if the scenery was spectacular before, this was like that – but with ocean views.

This is a fairly narrow, winding road, with breathtaking views around every curve.

There is a large car park right at the top of the road, where we stopped for lunch.

We continued on, back to the main road (the Sky Road is a loop). As main roads go, the traffic wasn’t too bad – although we did have to give ways to sheep a few times.

Our next stop was Connemara National Park, where there are several walks to do, ranging from the 500m forest walk to the 7km Diamond Hill walk. We are pretty experienced bushwalkers so 7km on well marked tracks isn’t too much to attempt. The walk starts with gently sloping paths, but looking up at the hill, we knew it would get tougher!

The walk continued through amazing highland scenery, with heather and gorse, and silvery stones on the hills. The ground is a unique boggy peat which means even the paved rocky paths were oddly bouncy underfoot.

As we headed for the summit, we passed several groups of hikers who commented on how great it was to see kids doing such a tough walk – we guess these people haven’t seen many Australian bushwalks! This walk required reasonable fitness but wasn’t really strenuous. We eventually reached a pile of silvery white stones marking the very top of the hill.

We could see for miles – hills, valleys, lakes, the busy car park at Kylemore Abbey...

The walk down was just as spectacular, but a lot quicker! And now when we hear of purple heather and springy turf, we know just what they are.

We had a quick stop at the playground at the National Park visitors’ centre, then back in the car to see Kylemore Abbey. This beautiful 19^th Century building has had an eventful and rather sad history but is now home to an order of Benedictine nuns. We didn’t go in, as the day was getting away, but it will be on our list for another time!

We continued on our drive, looping back through Connemara towards Galway. We somehow took a wrong turn and ended up approaching Galway from the exact opposite direction from what we’d  planned – which wasn’t a bad thing as this way led us straight to the car park for our accommodation! We popped in to the Eyre Square shopping centre to buy some food for a picnic dinner in the square – this is the only modern shopping mall we have ever seen with a 15^th Century wall and tower inside!